BY ROGER SMITH
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN
WARFIELD — The Warfield City Council approved an interlocal agreement Monday allowing Martin County Fiscal Court to install signage at the city’s caboose.
The project is part of the county’s “Himler Heritage Caboose” initiative, a small step in preserving the legacy of Martin Himler and the immigrant coal town he founded more than a century ago in what is now Beauty.
The county will fund the effort with a portion of its $20,000 America250KY Sub-Grant Award.
Mayor Michael Hinkle said county officials had approached him and floated the idea of giving the structure an added public purpose.
“They asked me if I wanted to make a concession stand out of it, and I told them that would be fine,” Hinkle said.
Hinkle said he also hopes to expand the site by pursuing funding for a stage. He plans to speak with Martin County Deputy Judge/Executive Carolea Mills about the possibility of securing a grant for that addition.
“Then we might be able to use [the caboose],” Hinkle said. “I haven’t talked to her. I haven’t been able to catch her in, but I’m going to talk to her about it.”
The county first announced the “Himler Heritage Caboose” project in November 2025, describing it as a way to honor Himler, a Hungarian immigrant who founded the cooperative mining town of Himlerville in 1918 and helped create one of the most unusual settlements ever established in the region.
For a brief period in the early 20th century, Martin County was home to a Jewish-led coal town built on the belief that immigrant families could find both economic opportunity and cultural belonging in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky.
Though the name Himlerville has long since disappeared from maps, its legacy remains one of the county’s most compelling.
Himler established the community along Buck Creek and named it after himself. At a time when Jewish life in America was more commonly associated with urban centers and antisemitism remained widespread, the idea of a Jewish coal town in Appalachia drew national attention.
For several years, the experiment thrived.
At its height, Himlerville grew to about 1,000 residents.
Himler built homes, stores, a school, a theater and opera house, a bank, an ice cream parlor, a bakery, a powerhouse, a roundhouse for locomotive maintenance, a community building, a newspaper office and even a synagogue — a rarity in Eastern Kentucky’s coalfields. He also constructed a railroad bridge across the Tug Fork River in Warfield, a line to transport coal from Himlerville to West Virginia.
To promote the town and connect it to immigrant communities beyond the mountains, Himler published “The Hungarian Miners Journal” (“Magyar Bányászlap”).
Historians have described Himlerville as one of the most significant experiments in Jewish communal life ever attempted in Appalachia, an early reminder that the region’s history has always been more culturally layered than stereotypes suggest.
But like many coal towns, Himlerville proved vulnerable to forces beyond its control.
Flooding, volatile coal markets and growing financial strain mounted through the 1920s. Then, in the summer of 1928, a devastating flood effectively destroyed the town. Himler’s coal company failed, families moved away and the once-ambitious settlement gradually receded into memory, eventually becoming known as Beauty.
By 1930, the U.S. Census listed the population at just 371.
Today, the caboose and the railroad bridge stand among surviving reminders of Himler’s vision. And the legacy of Himlerville continues to draw historians, writers and descendants interested in the distinct community.
Easter egg hunt
In other business, the commission also heard from City Clerk Rhonda Price about the upcoming Easter egg hunt April 4 at Warfield Park. The city is partnering with the Warfield Park Community Center for a huge event.
“We have toys and stuff,” Price said. “And they have a bunch of toys and stuff.”
Price said Kathleen Price, Warfield Park Community Center board member, is working on an ambitious event that will include bicycle giveaways, entertainment and free food and refreshments.
“She’s working with some of the churches to do hot dogs, drinks and sweets free to the public,” Rhonda Price said.
The Easter egg hunt starts at 11 a.m.